CARNIVORA 237 



more small game than hunters do. In Connecticut, 28 stray cats were 

 shot on one 2O-acre tract in seven months. For one full day 226 ob- 

 servers watched 226 cats, which killed 624 birds during the day, an 

 average of 2.7 each. For one week 33 observers watched one cat each, 

 and the cats killed 239 birds, an average of 7.9 to the cat, more than 

 one each daily. For one month 1 5 observers watched one cat each, and 

 the cats killed 307 birds while under observation, or an average of 

 20.4 each. It is not known, of course, how many they may have de- 

 stroyed when not observed. Stray cats are even much worse. Cats some- 

 times kill not to eat, but for sport, as sheep-killing dogs do. One killed 

 24 chickens in a day, another killed 25, another 34. Cats have extermi- 

 nated or nearly exterminated more species of birds than has any other 

 animal except man. Only one-third of the cats will kill rats at all. 40 



Cat-proof fences of woven wire placed close to the ground, espe- 

 cially if surmounted with twine fish net, to baffle them in attempts to 

 climb over, have been tried with some success as a protection from 

 marauding cats. Wire nets, of large enough mesh to permit the birds 

 to pass through but too small for the cats, placed about nests of small 

 birds at sufficient distance to prevent the cats from inserting their paws 

 and reaching the nests, may be effectively used for the protection of 

 some species of birds. Some attempts are being made to remedy mat- 

 ters by legislation, usually only to the extent of authorizing the killing 

 of cats found straying beyond the limits of their owners' premises, or 

 permitting hunters and requiring game wardens to destroy cats found 

 hunting or killing protected species of birds or mammals or with such 

 birds or mammals in their possession. 41 One municipal ordinance re- 

 quires owners of cats to attach bells to them when they are allowed 

 to run at large, and provides for the destruction of all roaming cats 

 not so belled. 42 Cat license laws have been proposed in some states. 

 (See Chapter xxvn, concerning Legislation.) 



The food habits of domestic cats are too well known to leave any 

 need for discussion of their food in detail. It is not so well known 

 that in addition to their ordinary food they also eat fish, "the food 

 which few cats can resist the temptation of stealing," 43 moths, beetles, 



^Forbush, The domestic cat: Bird killer, mouser and destroyer of wild life 

 means of utilizing and controlling it, Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, Economic 

 Biol., Bull. No. 2, 1916: Facts about cats, Bird-Lore, xvii, 165-167, 1915. Henderson, 

 The practical value of birds, pp, 77-78, 100-103, 1927. 



* l Bird-Lore, xix, 178, 1917; xxi, 330, 1919. Wilson Bulletin, No. 105, p. 118, 1918. 

 California Fish and Game, i, 42, 1914. 



42 Bell the cat, American game (Bull. Amer. Game Protec. Assn.), xvm, 87, 1929. 



"LaValette, Kept. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1878, pp. 509-516. 



